


Of Hell and Heaven

by Deannie



Series: Women on the Border [13]
Category: Ladyhawke (1985)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: The night is dark, and Isabeau's thoughts are blacker still.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: wings. Part of my Women on the Border series.

In the beginning, she thought of him as Etienne. Her captain. Her love. Horribly changed, yes, but still wedded to her soul in every way imaginable.

But the beast lacked Etienne’s restraint; his humanity, of course. Eventually it was easier to call him “the wolf,” because her captain would not have done the things this wolf had done. Eventually it was easier not to say his name at all, for fear she might never put face to word again.

She wondered what he called her, in the daylight. If he still called the raptor “Love” and “Isa.” She did not remember the days—not really, not as a woman would remember them. They were only fog and air and wing and the firm, safe feel of his arm under her talons. She could not remember his face then, but the feel of him was with her constantly.

She had thought the days would be easier, somehow. Foolish to believe such a thing, given the evil wrought upon them, but… But the nights were so horrible. At first, when he was  _ only _ beast, vicious and frightened, he hurt her more than once before she taught him to know her scent. And then, when he knew her but did not  _ know _ her as he had, when he was but a beast, tame for her though open to the passions of any wolf—for food and fight and fear…

He had been beautiful once. Not the terrible beauty he was now, with dark, sleek coat and shining eyes that watched her in the night. No, he had been beautiful. Hers.

Human.

She did not know what they were now. Man or wolf, bird or woman. They were desolation. They were hopelessness. And at dawn and dusk, they were unimaginable pain. 

Isabeau feared the dawn, as she never had before. The feel of the wolf’s fur, warm and living under her human hand, inevitably gave way to pain and heartache, her body twisting, wings sprouting when no woman ought to have them. God punished her with the growth of every feather and the brief, horrific vision of her love, close enough to touch. Yet there was never skin beneath her skin, nor fur beneath her talon.

It was the same for him, she thought—she selfishly  _ hoped _ . She couldn’t be alone in the horror of the feel of it. It must pain him  _ so much _ to fall on all fours, to grow a grin of fangs that slash and bite and kill…

She prayed for death. Sometimes. When the pain of transformation lingered in the early evening. When the wings were still harsh memory in her arms and hands. When the wolf who was not and could not be her love, her Etienne, howled his horror into the night as she was sure the hawk screeched into the noontime. She prayed for death, but knew she would not seek it.

He would be alone then, both man and wolf. No hawk to guide him, no woman to stroke him in the night. She could not bear the thought because she knew, beyond all reason, that if she died, he would revenge her death upon the bishop, and he would die as well. She would be doomed to Hell for her suicide and he would rise to Heaven as a blessed soul and find her… missing.

And what a Hell of Heaven that would make.

So she rose, shrugged into the clothing he had left her, wrapped herself in the cloak that smelled like him, and waited. He would come to her and walk with her, a wolf and woman, obscene in their communion, or he would stay away and howl his fury and frighten her with his pain and anger. Make her wonder whether this might be the day he set out once more for Aquila.

_ God, let it end, _ she prayed this night, as dawn approached and the wolf came with it, near enough to touch yet never hers to hold.  _ God, let it end now. Let us be. Let us kill ourselves together if we must.  _

_ For if we do, of Hell, what a Heaven that would make. _

******   
the end


End file.
